The more times I watch the video of Buena Regional High School wrestler Andrew Johnson standing on the sidelines in a crowded gym having his dreadlocks shorn before God and everybody, before he was allowed to compete, the more angry I get.

As you may have heard or seen by now, Johnson, who is black, was forced – on the spot – to forfeit his dreadlocks or forfeit his match, or so said referee Alan Maloney, who is white, a South Jersey official who has at least one other racially-tinged incident in his past.

The more I read of what happened to Andrew Johnson, the more I kept thinking of the iconic Jamaican-born reggae artist Bob Marley, who proudly sported his own set of dreadlocks. I tried hard to imagine Maloney, or anyone else in charge, trying to tell Marley that he either had to cut his dreadlocks or he would not be able to stand on stage and sing “Buffalo Soldier.”

It may not be quite the same thing – but it is of course the very same thing. A thing not so far removed from Jackie Robinson, or Paul Robeson, or Muhammed Ali.

The ACLU of New Jersey, I think, hit it about right in its tweet of the Andrew Johnson incident:

In this image taken from a video provided by SNJTODAY.COM, Buena Regional High School wrestler Andrew Johnson is declared the winner after his match on Dec. 19.(Photo: Michael Frankel, AP)

“How many different ways will people try to exclude black people from public life without having to declare their bigotry?” reads the tweet. “We’re sorry this happened to you, Andrew. This was discrimination, and it’s not OK.”

By making the young wrestler yield to this humiliation, Maloney was in turn attempting to rob him of his identity, part of his culture.

Certainly, I am somewhat fuzzy on the rules of high school wrestling, and especially when it comes to hair, and hair covering. Reportedly, Johnson had a cover over his hair, but apparently it didn’t meet the standards, or at least how those standards were interpreted by Maloney. Obviously, someone dropped the ball here besides Maloney; this rules discussion should have been had well before the wrestler took the mat.

Still, one wonders if the outcome had been the same, say, if Johnson were a white kid with his own dreadlocks or extremely long hair.

While it says something about the character of Johnson that he vowed to compete, anyway, in the face of it all and did win the match, in the 120-pound class by defeating Oakcrest High (Mays Landing) athlete David Flippen, this is an ugly incident that has no place in our world, especially in a time when we are seeing more and more racist, ethnic and anti-Semitic imagery and vandalism pop up in high schools across New Jersey.

Maloney, and those who supervise him, are adults, and our young athletes are supposed to be able to look up to adults, whether they are coaches, league officials, or referees, look to them to be fair arbiters and respectful mentors, to rise above any hint of prejudice.

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) has said it is investigating the matter and is recommending that “the referee in question” not be assigned to any event until the review is complete.

That is all very well, but what happened has happened. And thanks to reporting and a tweet by Mike Frankel of SNJ Today News, it is out there for all the world to see.

Since I have been in New Jersey these past 13 years, I have come to know and appreciate the great high school wrestling tradition that is rich and long-held in this state. The fact that this incident, racially-intended or not, may somehow soil that tradition makes me sad indeed.

What makes me sadder, though, is the thoughtless humiliation that was visited on Andrew Johnson, a high school athlete who just wanted to compete, and to compete as the whole of the person he is.

Bruce Lowry is the editorial page editor for The Record and NorthJersey.com